don't know how to admit that i'm broken
by daggers.silver
Summary: he's used to not feeling safe in his own school - or anywhere for that matter - but there's something different about an ex marine mercenary whatever the hell being the one to shove your face into a mirror and drag you back into a chokehold. - tag to 4x12 but with a different ending cause frank sucks also archie's not invincible


A/N: this is a bigger mess than usual ngl cause i'm more used to... inner monologue/stream of consciousness + very sparse Actual Actions happening? but this has a LOT happening all at once, so it felt kinda awkward a lot of the time, but homeboy pulled through for y'all and did her best even if it feels a bit clumsy and clunky. i once again ran out of steam before getting to my original plan for this entirely; i wanted more actual comfort at the end, but i'm impatient and hoping i can FOR ONCE just post a second chapter at some point? cause i do have some canon divergent-ish ideas for smth? it's just a matter of if i can get the ball rolling on my prose to actually write it. but i do have Ideas, so fingers crossed. otherwise this entire first chapter feels kinda pointless kdskd

but hey, it is just an episode tag if nothing else - spoilers for 4x12 in general

rated t for some language and violence/injury

lyrics from i can't breathe - bea miller

* * *

_somebody get me a hammer  
__wanna break all the clocks and the mirrors  
__and go back to a time that was different_

_a time when i didn't feel like there was something missing_

* * *

he's used to not feeling safe in his own school - or anywhere for that matter - but there's something different about an ex marine mercenary whatever the hell being the one to shove your face into a mirror and drag you back into a chokehold.

archie doesn't know _why _he'd just turned, _right _after f.p. finished warning him about the escape, why something in his brain hiccupped, tripped up, went straight to buffering the moment he caught a glimpse of a figure twice his size reflected behind him for just enough time to be critical.

there's no pain when his cheek makes contact with the mirror, no immediate panic drawn forth; just the sudden flash of the room reduced to smears, and the slow realization that he can no longer breathe.

_then _the panic kicks in.

it blinds him more than the hit to the head, more than the sudden lack of bloodflow to his brain, this roaring in his ears that has every last inch of his skin crawling, and he writhes to rid himself of it, kicks a foot out and feels their bodies stumble back. for a moment nothing changes, the pressure wedged against his adam's apple simply moving with the motion but then it lessens, and he chases the relief with desperate hands of his own.

the sides of the bathroom stalls are his momentum, head only just now catching up to the impact with the wall and the brief lack of oxygen. his legs don't feel like his own as they propel him forward, and then they aren't, suddenly suspended, airborn, and his face slams against another hard surface from nothing but gravity this time.

panic returns, a sick swell from stomach to chest, and unlike before he's already swinging when ted pulls him close, even as he's slammed to the side panelling like a ragdoll, he twists back around and aims for his chest, his face, returns the favor and slings the man's own body into the other side of the stall only to feel those hands grab at his head again, and the world's colorless.

this time he feels the impact, the lack of surprise a counterintuitive disadvantage that has his teeth grinding together until they creak with the sound of the stall folding under him when ted throws his entire body into it.

the floor is as distinguishable from the ceiling for a moment.

he can't hear past the ringing in his ears, can't feel through the distant buzz rushing all the way down to the tips of his fingers, vision blurred but not so much he can't see the toilet bowl still intact and _stable _enough to support his weight. so he reaches, clings, feels the porcelain surprisingly cold against his skin and clings even tighter when he's once more pulled at from behind.

the toilet pulls right along with him instead, and then he's on his back.

and ted is fucking _tall._

so he aims for his fucking kneecaps.

the sound ted makes is satisfying if not brief, but it's enough that archie has an opening, so he aims for his fucking face too, and then his body, fists feeling less coordinated than they've ever been but they're all he has, all ted has, and archie can feel every knuckle.

except ted does something to his elbow that makes it_ grind, _hits him in the face for the nth time in the last forty seconds, and archie's weightless.

he thinks he hits the ground. he must have, but he can't breathe again, can't see, can't hear, though the starving sensation is flaring red hot from his back instead of his neck. the floor is chilled and pressing microscopic bits of dust and gravel carried in on peoples' shoes into his fingers. his body moves of its own accord, syrup slow, arms shifting and sliding on nothing until those too tight hands grab at him again, drag him to his knees and shove his face into the sink.

something pops.

it snaps and crackles and reverberates inside his own skull like gristle on bone from the front of his neck and the stab of pain that accompanies it is almost more alarming than the sudden lack of air in his lungs.

he's gonna die in a fucking school bathroom on his fucking knees.

something dislodges even further though this time more painless, a last shred of composure lost somewhere between his head and his heartbeat pulsing in time to the stars swarming his vision. a new desperation has him clawing for something, _anything, _and he almost hates ted for not even trying to stop him more than he does anything else he's done in the last minute alone, as if he knows archie's a goner at this point, an animal twitching and rolling in the last throes of death and denial.

_fuck, _he thinks, drops his hand from reaching at the nearby faucet.

and his hand lands on something.

_god there's fucking __something__, _and archie yanks _hard _on it, too relieved to be surprised, and uses the momentum to shove it up and over his shoulder.

water shoots in his face.

archie feels himself breathe.

and then _kevin _is fucking there, stood still in the now-open doorway and appropriately blank-faced. archie doesn't think he's ever been more relieved to see another person in his life.

the sudden entrance along with the pipe sticking out of his shoulder provides more of an opportunity than archie's had this entire time, and he's grabbing the piece of the toilet that came with him before with automatic fingers and swinging it at the back of his opponent's head with as much force as he can manage, and ted goes down like a ton of bricks.

kevin's eyes are as wide as saucers.

archie could fucking cry.

_"what the hell is happening?"_

archie honestly couldn't give less of a shit right now so he shrugs, or tries to; he's not exactly sure his arms are even still working anymore, but his legs do enough to get him over ted's prone body and collapsing against kevin's.

the walls ripple to the left and to the right - from the water still dripping off his hair or the pins and needles pricking swirls across his scalp, he's not sure. he just leans against kevin and goes where he goes, drags one foot in front of the other and strains to listen over the sluggish pumping against his eardrums. he grabs at his throat, something thick and aching tying knots there, throbbing loud, knocking out a cough that burns up off his tongue and then another.

he thinks kevin asked him something so he just says_ 'yeah', _and it feels like road rash.

and fucking_ somehow_ ted is still standing,_ jesus christ._

he charges down the hall toward the both of them like a bull seeing red as archie fights not to see double, heart shivering somewhere deep in his ribs enough to have him clutching at kevin's shoulder - for kevin's sake or his own, he'll never know.

regardless, it does neither of them good.

kevin goes flying into lockers, and archie into a door frame. he tries to catch himself on it, use it to keep him on his feet and nearly has enough time to turn back around before he's being kicked to the next room.

everything's sort of a blur after that.

his senses dial down, almost muted but not quite, as if watching himself from behind a false mirror. he's just a passenger, thrown against yet another something that shatters and breaks, tossed right onto the next and yet he still scrabbles, reaches, _tries, _and he feels like roadkill that's not lucky enough to be killed on impact.

and he can't breathe again.

he can fucking_ feel _again; the wall, suddenly flush at his back, the meaty hands around his throat. the knot there tightens, tightens, coarse rope creaking and unraveling under the pressure like poorly built foundations trying to catch the sky, crumbling playdough in the face of it, and he can't even sense its demolition past the new kind of pressure building up beneath his skin, his lips, his eyes.

archie scrabbles some more, reaches, squeezes, pulls, tries and fucking _tries _with oxygen-starved limbs like an animal twitching and rolling in the last throes of death and denial, and ted just squeezes tighter.

everything pulses. blinks from color to gray to growing black in a shrinking ring that leads right to ted's face with each too slow beat.

and ted just fucking smiles.

/\

he comes to without realizing he'd gone with hands still on his body.

the sick pang of adrenaline shoving tight in his bones is what propels him forward despite everything, thrashing back now that he registers a renewed lack of restriction, feeling nails scratch and elbows knock against something soft, and it hits him in gradual waves through all the static what it is that has him.

"-s okay, it's just me, archie, it's kevin!"

he blinks.

the room fades back in like it faded out but slower, waves lapped on sinking shore, eyes sticky and too large in their sockets but still taking everything in with a broadening fraction of lucidity.

kevin's watching him like he'll either bite or break.

archie does neither and simply sits, allows the sensations to rebound back to his body in increments; his hands, now braced in a mirror of kevin's posture at the other boy's biceps. his legs, bent out in front of him and thrumming unsteady to the rhythm of voices now floating in from outside the room. he sees mr. honey approaching, his hand tentatively settle atop kevin's shoulder. sees kevin flinch, feels his own throat bunching.

he coughs just as mr. honey's lips part to speak, a grimace twisting from his brows to his chin in one sore swoop as the road rash from before returns all at once all the way up in the back of his throat. his entire _body _aches, sprouting from his head and sinking its roots in wherever everywhere else.

"what the hell happened?"

and archie wants to answer, he really does. to at least _try _to explain why an ex marine mercenary whatever the hell just destroyed the boys bathroom and tried to kill him with his bare hands, but he's trying just to breathe instead, air dragging up and down the span of his throat like the sound of a straw moving against the plastic opening on the top of a fast food cup.

"i-i don't -" kevin begins, but falls short, and archie can't blame him; the guy asked the very same question not minutes ago.

has it been minutes?

"- _know. _that… that _guy _just fucking _attacked _him, i don't - he was _choking _him so i - i hit him with... a trophy."

honey glances back at the limp form mere feet away and archie thinks _oh._

_"... thank you, _kev."

the words cost him a not-breath and he struggles for another moment, fingers synching tighter around kevin as if it can help at all just as he realizes he's still holding on to begin with.

kevin squeezes back just as tight. though it's more alarm than reassurance that he sees staring back at him when he searches out kevin's eyes as if they can provide more of an anchor to the humming room around them than their hands do. and yet kevin says _'don't mention it' _in a voice that betrays the sentiment, all clipped and shredded at the edges.

archie wants to laugh, but he says_ 'never' _instead.

kevin does laugh, but it just looks like he might cry if he didn't.

the distant voices have grown louder by now, though it sounds more from proximity than actual volume despite the continuous ring in his ears. he listens to the wordless sounds, to mr. honey speaking quick and clear into his phone with more tension in his face than archie thinks he's seen since mr. honey first stepped foot in their school.

it's almost touching, if not for the everything else about the situation.

kevin nudges him with the pads of his fingers before sliding them down to his forearms, the movement causing his right elbow to twinge. "this is a very stupid and _very _inappropriate question to ask considering your eyes look like they're bleeding, but... are you okay?"

it's more of a _strange _question, archie thinks. not so much the question as the precursor, though; his eyes look like they're _bleeding?_

he's more concerned with not being able to _breathe _right.

"i'll live… 've had worse," he croaks, wincing, and frees a hand to try and rub at his throat before it protests with a fresh kind of tenderness.

_fuck._

"it's fucking insane that that's probably true, you know that?"

he knows that.

and he can't _breathe._

"i called the police. an ambulance is on its way as well." mr. honey crouches down beside them yet again, lips pressed into a thin line and hands twined together as he studies the two of them. "i hope you'll both have the answers to all the questions i _didn't _by the time they arrive," yet it's spoken more like a question.

archie still wants to scream at him, though - wants to scream in general, wanted to scream when ted first used his bodyweight to press archie's neck into porcelain and then choked the life out of him in a classroom.

instead he just wheezes out an exhale and closes his eyes.

the room immediately spins, and he wants to fall asleep and never wake up again.

"don't look at _me. _i've never seen that guy in my life," kevin says, voice pitched much higher than archie's used to hearing, and he suddenly feels a pang of guilt for everything that's just transpired, broken bathroom stalls and all.

god, he invited a fucking mercenary into his fucking _house._

shit, _ted. _

he needs to call f.p.

"m-my phone, where -" and he's trying to stand on legs that feel like lead, each push and pull of limbs going too wide, not wide enough, delayed and uncoordinated, but he manages to get to his knees before both kevin and mr. honey stop him with open palms on his shoulders.

_"you're _not moving until the paramedics say you can, alright? archie?"

he tries to swallow. tries to temper the instinct nausea rising to meet the gag reflex at the far back of his tongue, and it's suddenly overwhelming, burning insistent like an itch he can't ever scratch, persistent, _panicked, _and he freezes just to cope, grips anything within reach to steady himself at the sickening realization that it feels like it's been ages since he woke up and _he still can't breathe right._

"i-i can't -"

he feels kevin's hands on his shoulders again and realizes his eyes have closed, low simmer beneath their lids, and the panic is choking him, it's choking him more than a fucking ex marine mercinary _he can't breathe -_

"hey, sh, sh, archie, you're okay, you're gonna be fine, alright? the paramedics are on their way, they're gonna fix you up - right, mr. honey?"

there's no answer but a part of him thinks there isn't really supposed to be.

"you're okay," kevin says, like a vow, except if it is one, it just sounds like a lie, words thin and brittle and not nearly heavy enough.

still, archie nods even though he isn't.

and not two beats later, he opens his eyes to kevin practically deflating in place and f.p. rushing to their sides like a moth drawn to flame, gaze somehow both wide and narrowed at the same time. something loosens at the sight of him, undefinable in the moment, archie's head still swimming along with everything else, but the next not-exhale chokes from his mouth like a new kind of strangled thing in a way that makes him want to vomit but he just gags instead.

the motion pulses hard enough to make his eyes water.

_"son of a bitch."_

archie would have to agree.

he feels a fresh pair of hands replace kevin's as dual stabilizers keeping him rooted to the ground. "i just got off the phone with you," f.p. breathes, quiet and low and probably just to himself, but archie still lifts his head and tries to meet his eyes and finds he almost looks as wrecked as archie feels.

"i'm sorry."

it leaps from archie's tongue before he can stop it, and even he wonders_ for what, _why he felt the need to say it, why he said it as soon as f.p. arrived, but he otherwise occupies himself with an attempt at swallowing that falls flat and has that vice of panic quickly returning with a vengeance.

f.p. has the decency to try and hide the responding disapproval to archie's wholly _un _prompted apology. "don't try and talk, you hear me? you don't wanna irritate anything more than it already is." one of his hands leaves its perch on archie's shoulder to extend toward his neck as he speaks, slow and easy and questioning and yet something still flinches violent beneath archie's ribs in reply, heartrate spiking and his own hand flying up to catch f.p.'s by the wrist just before it can reach him.

there's a kind of pause.

he feels more than sees kevin's eyes on him, mr. honey's too - _does _see f.p.'s, steady and unblinking and patiently waiting for something.

archie counts to five before the iron in his grip fades to molten and his fingers uncurl themselves almost without his permission, heartbeat waning back to something closer to normal. then and only then does f.p. finally bridge the gap between his fingers and the length of archie's throat.

"tell me when to stop and i will."

his fingers are surprisingly light. they travel slow and thorough, little more than feathers against his skin until they reach middle center and archie's body jerks back on its own, eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted against the sound clambering at his tongue that still manages to make its way out on the following inhale.

f.p. bites out a quick apology. "it's already swelling, kid; i can't make out much anyway," he explains as some sort of amendment, and his hand moves back to his shoulder where it clamps down with a comforting amount of pressure and jostles just barely but enough for him to notice. "just try to focus on breathing."

he nods once, yet the words that come out of his mouth are _'i can't, i -'_

_"hey," _and the word is sharp, yet soft, eyes just as much so boring into his until he looks back, "you've been breathing since i got here, red. just keep doing that. the ambulance was right behind me; they'll be here before you know it. yeah?" his eyebrows tick up to accent his question, followed by a minimal nod.

archie feels his lips tremble.

he nods, and takes in another not-breath through his mouth.

/\

the paramedics work fast.

there're lights in his eyes and questions being asked and they tell him he can use one finger for yes and two for no if it's easier than speaking but kevin and f.p. end up answering whatever they can for him anyway and glancing at him repeatedly for confirmation. he thinks he does okay but his head aches and his ears are ringing and breathing still feels like rubber soles dragging over gym floors, and when they help him to the gurney, the entire room drains into a whirlpool that tries to swallow up his feet.

then he's watching the ceiling as it passes and then the inside of an ambulance, the more petite medic asking him if he knows what a _tracheostomy _is.

he thinks he might but he shakes his head anyway before she immediately presses a hand over his sternum and asks him to _'just try to lie still, okay?'_

something's funneled into his bloodstream that makes his throat disappear, hands and tools shifting far below his chin without but a whisper of sensation, sudden, blessed, relief that makes his eyes close and his body uncurl even if his face and arm and back still refuse to stop throbbing. there's nothing but the rock of the vehicle and the voices, constant and kind and walking him through whatever they're qualified to be doing to his neck. then a shift, a tightness, and a flow of oxygen directly to his lungs.

and that's when things begin to stop and start, like quick flashes of a camera, an old jalopy in need of repair.

he allows himself to blink past it all, fractions of sight and sound, wonders if it's from getting his head knocked around against too many things in under the span of five minutes or if he's merely easing from the forefront of his body as he finds he's prone to do in times like these; of nothing but stress and blood and pain.

he feels as if he's watching everything from the back of a movie theatre.

suddenly, fresh air. swinging doors, fluorescent lights.

the voices continue, and he cracks an eye open.

he thinks he catches a glimpse of kevin and f.p., munroe and reggie, but then the gurney turns and there's sterile white in place of urgent faces.

/\

he comes to without realizing he'd gone with something soft and flat beneath him.

a wave of confusion accompanies that of the cool air trailing along his skin, the soft beeping to his left, stable and sure and melodic, a soothing balm to the thread of fear threatening to tie around his throat.

his throat.

something sturdy and lukewarm is cushioned there, cradles his jaw and reaches down over his collarbone, but it's not restrictive so he continues to inhale, exhale, wiggles his chin and feels the resulting bend of foam against it.

_huh._

he mimics the movement in his fingers, feels the softness of a sheet against the left and the dip of his own stomach under the other despite a tangible heaviness, and decides that he must be safe. right?

he reaches out with the rest of his senses, licks his lips and finds them a little dry but less so than he was for some reason expecting, smells the air and detects a tang of something chemical and clean, listens to the distant footsteps passing to and fro and the whirring hums that tell of equipment and machines all around.

and the something shifting beside him. a sound of breathing other than his own.

"... archie?"

prompting, hopeful, male, and archie almost says_ 'dad?' _but it catches somewhere below the back of his tongue, muscle and tendon pulling strange and halting with the movement until his eyelids peel back to reveal a familiar brightness, colorless floors and ceiling alike, white lights still spilling over to compensate for the dwindling yellow peeking in through the curtains.

the beeping now has an image to match the sound; a likewise familiar screen with various lines and numbers conveying various vitals in various colors. he squeezes his eyes shut to readjust, a quick recalibration, and then he stares at it again, the shaky pieces of the puzzle finally falling back into place.

frank.

ted.

the school.

an iron grip wrapping around his neck.

"hey, you're okay, you're safe, you understand?" a glance to his left, calloused hand clamping down over his wrist to accompany the words, and f.p. suddenly looms like a storm, static electricity muted by a maintained level of personal space, arm outstretched from his seated position yet a couple feet away. the contact registers with a delay, his skull a steadfast bowling ball stuffed with cotton and glass eyes zeroed in on the other's until the words actually sink in like steam, blinking back the drops with a deep inhale through his nose and another quick sweep of the room.

just archie, f.p., and the machines.

he swallows, compulsory, and finds it more difficult to do so than he remembers it being, eyes still wide and desperate when they cant back to f.p., hoping to convey all the questions stirring thick magma at the base of his throat.

"we'll get to it, kid, alright? just - just," he interrupts himself to wipe a hand down his face, now inclined to the floor instead of the bed with weathered fingers stayed just beneath his nose for a beat or two before he continues, "give yourself a minute."

a minute.

archie wants to say _'i can't', _wants to say _'just fucking tell me what's so wrong that i woke up in a hospital bed', _but the last time he tried to say something it sounded more like rusted hinges far past even the point of squawking their displeasure, throat bunching up in all the wrong places and _weak, _and he doesn't want to think about that, doesn't want to face the possibility of f.p. telling him something's been ruined beyond repair, violence inflicted voicelessness, even long since shelved notions of a music career reduced to ash right in front of him.

so he takes another breath, fills his lungs as far as they'll go, and he takes a minute.

he takes note of the slight incline in his prone position, head elevated to something like a forty-five degree angle, left arm resting still against one side and the other nestled snug within a sling. with the left he reaches up to feel at his face, bypassing what he's now determined to be some kind of neck brace to feel at the light gauze placed over his right cheekbone.

he recalls the mirror shattering upon impact.

somewhat surprisingly, he feels comfortable, relatively free of any pain aside from a general ache everywhere and sticky fatigue across his skin. maybe that's to be expected with the iv stuck in his arm.

"they, uh… performed emergency surgery."

he says it slow.

archie just blinks, watches, studies the weary glaze in the other man's eyes.

"fractured thyroid cartilage. mucosal lacerations. damaged, um - vocal chords... said the sooner they could repair things, the better the recovery would be, so they -"

he thinks of rearranging things after july 4th, among them being his emergency contacts, listing his mom as his first and f.p. as his second and staring at his phone far after the screen grew dark and his eyes went dry.

"i don't know how much you remember. they asked you some questions, gave you a physical… sprained elbow, two broken ribs, and a concussion, to top everything else off."

a nurse walks in and archie finds it difficult to swallow for a plethora of new reasons. a doctor is two strides behind, the former messing with his machines while the latter speaks in tones that betray a professionally learned sympathy. she asks him if he can use one finger for yes, two for no, and she asks him questions that he thinks she would know better the answers to.

they both have kind eyes and nice voices but archie can't focus past the numbness in his throat, makes out words like f.p.'s between all the questions that he hears more than listens to.

things like voice rest, humidity, painkillers, antibiotics, antireflux.

avoidance of caffeine, dairy, citrus, no late night meals or exercising too soon after eating.

broken ribs, six weeks recovery. sprained elbow, two. the surgical patch can be removed after forty-eight hours or so, and the tracheotomy once they're sure everything is stable.

a part of him's had this song and dance memorized since his dad was first shot in a diner by his nextdoor neighbor. learned the steps better when his friends kept winding up in hospitals, like the back of his hand when he woke up in one himself, alone and with new scars stretching from shoulder to chest to commemorate a loneliness he still hasn't quite learned to shake.

and yet he feels nothing but a dawning claustrophobia in his palms, clasped together and fidgeting in his lap where they burn, itch, _ache _to rip every last thing restricting his body until he's but skin and bare bone wide open to the cold - at least then he'd be numb, an animal ready and waiting in fetal position for inevitable blows that he's long since given up on being able to stop but maybe at least softened. a built up resistance over years of uncontrolled exposure, fist after fist and loss after loss.

you'd think evolution would have figured out a little thing like pain by now, yet no matter how many times he winds up here, he just wants it to stop.

he just wants everything to _stop._

f.p. talks to the woman until she leaves, and archie supposes sleep will have to do.

* * *

_now my body and mind are so distant  
don't know how to escape from this prison  
how can i free my mind?_

_ cause i can't breathe_

* * *

A/N: i did so much research for throat trauma alone i couldn't let this go to waste even if i don't write a second chapter but i PROMISE i'll like. really really try cause i Want to execute my Vision. but icb they keep putting archie through so much shit without it ever? meaning anything? like this ep's fight felt more real and less Action Hero-esque, but it still left him with nothing worse than some bruises, after getting beat up by a MERCENARY like twice his size. archie's not invincible the cw he's barely 18yo this is ridiculous, and not in the fun riverdale bullshit ridiculous way. but yeah this is like 5+ hours of research with only a handful of lines to show for it lmao the things i do to write directionless oneshots... but throat injuries are NOT something u wanna mess around with, plus the fact that archie used to be really into singing, even in a back burner way as of 4x13, it just adds up to a potential uhh sad au idea so uhhhh uh mayhaps ¿ i will ? if i can ?uhh... ?


End file.
